With events in Iran stalled – it looks like the hard-liners have effectively
neutralized
the opposition, at least for the moment – and nothing more pressing to occupy
our attention (not counting, of course, the trials and tribulations of Perez
Hilton), it’s time to rewind the tape and get back to those stories that
never seemed to have a real ending.

First off, the Iraq war: Over in the UK, they’re convening an investigation
into the Iraq war – how we came to fight it, and why.
A useful process, albeit a bit belated: there’s no chance, one presumes, that
such an inquiry could ever take place in this country. Too many politicians
of both parties would stand exposed as fools, knaves, or both.

In any case, the process of unearthing
the trail of evidence has, so far, produced one fascinating memo, dated Jan.
31, 2003, written by Blair’s chief foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning,
which details the lengths George W. Bush and Tony Blair were prepared to go
to legitimize their war. Faced with the prospect that UN inspectors would fail
to find "weapons of mass destruction" – for the simple reason that
they didn’t exist
– the two most mendacious characters in international politics discussed what
the UK Guardian refers to as "alternative scenarios" to provoke
a military conflict.

According to the memo, "Bush told Blair the U.S. had drawn up a provocative
plan ‘to fly U2 reconnaissance aircraft painted in UN colors over Iraq with
fighter cover.’ Bush said that if Saddam fired at the planes this would put
the Iraqi leader in breach of UN resolutions."

A little paint, some cooperative"journalists," and an utter disregard
for anything remotely resembling the truth – it’s a recipe for what the late
Gen. William
E. Odom characterized as the
worst military disaster in U.S. history. It is also, I might add, a political,
diplomatic, and geopolitical catastrophe, the consequences of which we will
be experiencing for the
next few decades.

The Guardian informs us that "Lord Guthrie, a former chief of the
defense staff under Blair, described the memo as ‘quite shocking.’" Hasn’t
Lord Guthrie ever heard of the Gulf
of Tonkin incident, in which the U.S. invented a completely nonexistent
North Vietnamese "attack" on a U.S. ship, and used it as a pretext
to gin up a disastrous war? Perhaps the Brits are easily shocked, but to an
American this is just another day in the life of the Empire.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is against
making the hearings public, supposedly because witnesses will not speak freely
if exposed to the glare of publicity, but at least they’re having an investigation,
which is much more than we can say about the situation in the U.S. Here there
is about as much likelihood of effectively probing the causes of the Iraq war
as there is of the sun rising in the West. The opacity of our public officials
is nearly impenetrable, and this is as true
under an ostensibly "liberal" administration as it was under Bush
II. President Barack Obama was quick to renege on his alleged commitment to
"transparency," and he exhibits the same stubborn willfulness when
it comes to holding on to "national security"-related information,
i.e., information that could prove embarrassing
to government officials.

Obsessive secrecy in the alleged defense of "national security" takes
a back seat, however, when it comes to our relations with certain privileged
entities, and this is especially true when it comes to our "special relationship"
with Israel. What’s so "special" about this relationship is that it
permits the Israelis to spy on us to their hearts’ content – without fear of
prosecution, even if they’re caught. Yes, we know that Jonathan
Pollard has been in jail all these years, but that appears to be an anomaly.
Look what happened to Ben
Ami Kadish, who shared an Israeli handler with Pollard, and got off with…
a
fine! Speaking of the Kadish case, judge William H. Pauley III averred,
"This offense is a grave one that implicates the national security of the
United States. Why it took the government 23 years to charge Mr. Kadish is shrouded
in mystery."

Allow me to clear up the mystery, Your Honor: as the case of the mysterious
"Israeli art students"
and the shenanigans that took place with the Urban Movers in New Jersey on 9/11
make all too clear, Israel has carte blanche to spy in the United States and
carry out whatever covert actions it deems necessary. Using the Israel lobby
and its multifaceted organizations and front groups, Israeli intelligence has
thoroughly penetrated American political life, including the U.S. government
at every level. And political influence is routinely used to steal U.S. "secrets"
– which, as far as the Israelis are concerned, are very far from secret.

The exemplar of this loosey-goosey "security" policy is the AIPAC
espionage case, in which two top officials of the powerful lobbying group
were caught red-handed pilfering U.S. secrets fed to them by one Larry
Franklin, the Pentagon’s chief Iran policy analyst. Franklin, a fanatical
neocon, was an eager spy on behalf of Israel: he believed the Jewish state wasn’t
being given enough access, and, determined to rectify that, he offered
his services to Steve Rosen,
AIPAC’s longtime chief Washington operative, and Keith
Weissman, the group’s Iran expert, during the course of a "working"
luncheon with the chief political officer at the Israeli embassy, Naor Gilon.
Since the FBI’s counterintelligence unit was keeping close tabs on Gilon and
his fellow lunchers as part of an ongoing investigation into Israeli spying,
Franklin’s betrayal was caught
on tape.

Rosen was a key
figure in AIPAC’s rise as one of the most powerful of the Washington lobbies.
Pat Buchanan famously quipped that the U.S. Congress is "Israeli-occupied
territory," and it was Rosen who, for many years, was the de facto commander
of that occupying army. That he was also spying for Israel, as well as openly
pressuring government officials into toeing the Lobby’s line on issues great
and small, is no big surprise: AIPAC has long served as an adjunct
of the Israeli government, an entity that surely includes the Mossad.

The indictment
of Franklin, Rosen, and Weissman details espionage-related activities on the
part of the latter two as far back as 1999. Yet the U.S. Justice Department
did not see fit to prosecute AIPAC itself, only two of its most prominent employees.
Which meant that a couple of the spy network’s tentacles were to be amputated,
while the rest of the creature was left intact – and just as powerful as ever.

So powerful, indeed, that they enlisted
the services of Rep.
Jane Harman, who aspired
to the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, and ultimately got Obama’s
Justice Department to drop
all the charges against Rosen and Weissman. As for Franklin, who pled guilty
in exchange for the promise of leniency at sentencing, he was originally given
12 and a half years in prison and a substantial fine, but, upon dismissal of
the charges against Rosen and Weissman, was re-sentenced to a
mere 10 months home confinement and an extended period of probation. One
would be interested to know the terms of his probation: no more reading The
Weekly Standard and Commentary?

One colorful detail of this case that kind of jumps out at you is the
argument made in the government’s legal brief to judge T. S. Ellis, justifying
their motion to reduce Franklin’s sentence to nine years:

“Just prior to the entry of his guilty plea, Franklin was approached by
two individuals who made a pitch to Franklin about faking his death by suicide
and disappearing, thus thwarting any cooperation in the case against Rosen
and Weissman. In January 2006, Franklin conducted five consensually recorded
telephone conversations with one of these individuals, in support of an obstruction
of justice/witness tampering investigation; however, the FBI was unable to
obtain the requisite incriminating evidence to support a criminal investigation.”

It’s an open question as to whether these two individuals were Americans or
Israelis, but as far as the matter of whether Rosen, Weissman, and Franklin
were part of a much larger espionage ring, that’s settled. For years
– as long as the case took to prosecute – the cheering section for the AIPAC
defendants has been claiming that Rosen and Weissman were doing exactly what
journalists and legitimate lobbyists do all the time in Washington: dealing
in information. One wonders, however, if these "journalists" are usually
asked by their employers to fake their own suicides.

Of course, if Franklin had agreed, he might not be alive today. After all,
who would make inquiries about someone who’s already believed to be dead? Franklin’s
secrets would die with him – and, as it is, they are still unlikely to be revealed.

This just got me to thinking about how the Rosenberg's would have been treated if they had been passing on secrets to Israel rather than the USSR. Probably not the death penalty, but they certainly would have been treated a lot harsher than the individuals in the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal. Being pro-Israel prior to 1967 just wasn't as politically correct as it is in certain circles in this country these days.

At the time I was working for Broadcom, whose stock had gone up about 400% in a year or less. This was in early 2000, just before the bottom fell out of the dotcom stock market. They were clearly an industry leader, and if you believed the company's story, it was destined to be the next Hewlett-Packard. (Though later it restated earnings by a billion dollars after the largest stock option backdating scandal in the industry broke, and the founder was indicted for, among other antics, smoking so much ganja on his private jet that the pilot had to use an oxygen mask to land on the right planet.)

We had just moved into a new building and I was located near the front. A few days after the move, as we were still unpacking, a middle-eastern-looking fellow suddenly walked in past the receptionist and entered the front section of "cubes". He looked somewhat agitated and was clearly casing the joint. I walked up to him and asked him if I could help him. He focused on me but seemed to be trying to get the layout of the area at the same time, flicking his eyes around right and left.

He said he was an Israeli art student and wanted to know if we wanted to buy any of his art. He didn't have anything in his arms, so this made little sense and my internal alarms went off. I got close to him and told him to take a hike. He didn't flinch at all (I'm 6 foot and 275 lbs) and I remember thinking that from his nervousness (he was also sweating) and general demeanor he might be on speed or cocaine. He just started babbling about selling art prints while trying to look around. I kept telling him to leave loudly and edged him back toward the door and he finally left.

About 15 minutes later one of the engineers walked up to my area out into the lobby to speak to the receptionist, who came and got me. He said that there had been a guy hanging around one of the back doors who had "tailgaited" into the building when an employee used his card to enter. I went into the back and it was the same guy, who was moving rapidly up and down the aisles of cubes as if looking for a particular office or person. When he saw me he took off at a very fast walk back through the front of the building and out the way he had originally entered.

In retrospect, they picked a good time to try to penetrate the building. The phones and security equipment were not completely functional because of the move, and strange people were in the building moving equipment and installing it. A camera was stolen from my cube a day or two later.

I'm still wandering to what happened to Justin Raimondo ! From an anti war activist that I respected, Justin became a "marginalist" , and a "digitlist", an a supporter of the Western's mainstream Media propaganda. What a transformation Justin ??? I still have the conviction Justin that been an anti war activist and a supporter of the mainstream Media propaganda it is contradictory. Period. So the Iranian election was fraudulent in the "margin", with "even or uneven last digits" Mr. Raimondo? I ask you again ; What happened? Where are the real hard facts, the real evidence Mr. Raimondo? Nowhere? For that, then, we have to look at the "margin"? Have a nice day Mr. Raimondo! It is always good to be on guard, you know.

Very interesting, given Israel's emphasis on and interest in the communications industry (e.g. the entire cell phone industry does its billing through an Israeli company). I always wonder about all those Israeli students selling junk on carts in every single mall in America. We're told that it's all about earning cash tax-free (on tourist visas no less), but I wouldn't be surprised if there's more to it.

The Obama's administration failure to investigate the whole Iraq war fiasco and prosecute the responsible is a disappointment. Just what would such an investigation reveal that is so threatening? That Republicans and Democrats were in cahoots in lying in orchestrating the false premises for the war and turning a blind eye toward the lies? Is that it? That doesn't sound all that dangerous. Americans have an awefuly high tolerance for these sort of Washington shananigans. Would something more shocking come to light?

Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute. He is a contributing editor at The American Conservative, and writes a monthly column for Chronicles. He is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement [Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993; Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000], and An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard [Prometheus Books, 2000].